


The Night We Met

by genevievedarcygranger



Series: Negan/Lucille fics [9]
Category: The Walking Dead (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Cheating, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 20:44:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13578597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genevievedarcygranger/pseuds/genevievedarcygranger
Summary: Inspired by the song by Lord Huron and by the newest Negan-centric comic issue, I just wanted to write something angsty about Negan and Lucille; everything about them.





	The Night We Met

I am not the only traveler  
Who has not repaid his debt  
I’ve been searching for a trail to follow again  
Take me back to the night we met

Wiggling the pot into the rain-softened earth, Negan tried to see only the way the fresh greenness of the sunflower stem contrasted with the black soil rather than the mocking, make-shift cross that was just beyond his focus. He preferred something lively and happy to something decidedly…not.

She was that way, too, except she’d rather get a string of pearls on Valentine’s Day than a bouquet of flowers. She always had expensive tastes that way. Steak dinners over burgers and fries. At least she was allergic to seafood. Negan would’ve gone broke on lobster dinners.

It made him chuckle to think about how she wanted the finer things in life, but she ended up marrying him where they lived as boringly and as average as there was. Well, it used to make him chuckle, but now – as with every memory he had of her – it just made him smile, and his smile was bittersweet.

He tried to push that away, to just focus on the colors of the sunflower in the bleak world. Not exactly a rose bush, but still a flower. Maybe she would’ve liked it for being different? She wasn’t one for sappy, sentimental cards anyway. She wasn’t allergic to flowers. Maybe…

Negan thought to tell her about it, though his words were haltingly spoken.

“I know you weren’t much into flowers when you were alive…but then again, people change after the end of the world. Maybe if you’d live…you’d have grown to appreciate a little beauty in this ugly world. Besides… there’s not a whole hell of a lot to do these days.”

Except survive. That took everything to do. But Negan didn’t think it was too hard to stay alive anymore. Or that he particularly cared.

His thoughts strayed and he once again pulled away from that path. ‘Positive. Stay positive. Tell her something important. If you’re going to die, tell her something. You have to start making your goodbyes. God knows you won’t be seeing her after having lived and died in this world.’

Bowing his head, Negan closed his eyes to the ugly world, the cross, the grave, the sunflower – and tried to picture her instead. Jet black hair, large eyes, pale skin that always burned rather than tanned; he couldn’t remember much more. It would have to do.

“And frankly, there’s not much I can do to honor you…and let you know I’m thinking about you…other than this. I’m always thinking about you, Lucille. I want you to know that.”

And he wasn’t lying. After she died, he had stopped lying to her.

And then I can tell myself  
What the hell I’m supposed to do  
And then I can tell myself  
Not to ride along with you

Sometimes, Negan wondered if he made the wrong choice. If he was supposed to pick the other woman over her – if he should have divorced her right when he started feeling the need to stray. If he had stayed with Agnes instead, maybe Agnes would’ve been alive with him and he wouldn’t be so hung up and broken and alone as he is now.

Of course, Agnes could be dead already, too, and instead of him talking to Lucille it would be to her.

Or…maybe he’d already be dead.

Yes. He would’ve been dead. Lucille was the one who gave him strength. There was a reason he chose her – his one, true wife and only damn woman he’d ever given – gave – a damn about and truly love – over Agnes. Agnes was a good lay. Flexible as hell and tight pussy, nice pair of tits, into anal, cute feet.

But Lucille offered so much more than that, damn it. Homemade cookies from scratch, corny jokes, random facts about alcohol percentages and debunking historical myths. She was a weirdo, average girl who dreamed of a glamorous life on a stage with her piano and voice. Negan couldn’t give her that, but he gave her the white picket fence and wrap around porch and faux-granite countertops and shoe-mold in the retiled bathroom he never got around to finishing. Her gave her the damn pearl necklaces when he could, and the orgasms and love and kisses so often he couldn’t count. Lucille wasn’t perfect (and Negan was far from perfect), but she was perfect for Negan; and that’s all that mattered.

That hadn’t been enough for him. (He hadn’t been enough for her).

But what if…it were the other way around?

“I know the thing you say when something bad happens to someone you love is, ‘I wish it had happened to me instead.’”

Negan paused to think about it. Did he wish he were dead? Was it just apathy or genuine despair? It had been so long since he really felt something.

Thoughtfully, he continued, “Sometimes you mean it and sometimes you don’t…but I’ve been thinking a lot about how much I wish I had died and you had lived.”

Funny how when he tried to just think on his own, Negan didn’t know the truth, but as soon as he spoke the words out loud it hit him. He wanted to die. It’s why he didn’t kill those two dead ones when he got the sunflower. They could kill him in his sleep – eat him alive – and it would be what he’d deserved. When he had shoved them down rather than driving the spade in their skulls, he had half-wondered if maybe they’d get in a lucky bite or if he’d be reckless enough to get a scratch. After he’d gotten back and checked, he’d been disappointed. No such luck.

Lucille didn’t need to know about that, though. This was about her. “You probably would have done things so much differently than I have. You probably would have been smart about things…”

Yeah. Lucille wouldn’t have gone crazy. She wouldn’t have been hungry for power – the power to control something in this untamed world. She wouldn’t have continued to mourn a piece-of-shit cheater like him. She wouldn’t have tried to fill the void he left with a string of men to collect like little treasures to horde like some kind of god-damn monster. She wouldn’t have been a dictator. She wouldn’t have had to ruin herself to survive. She still would’ve been good. She would’ve still been Lucille, his Lucille, even without him.

More than that though…

“You probably wouldn’t have ended up alone.”

She would have found someone better. Or at least, would have had a group of people loyal to her, who loved her, maybe as much as he loved her. No one could hate Lucille or want to jail her, or exile her, or kill her. No one would have left her alone to rot. No one except him – and he already did that, he knew that.

For a moment he kept his eyes closed and tried to picture Lucille, alive and well in this world, happy without him, not alone but surrounded by people. People like Rick’s people who happily kissed Rick’s tight ass and rightfully so. Lucille would’ve been just as good a leader as Rick, possibly better. Were she alive, would she be living in Alexandria, attending their festivals and Sunday dinner parties, sitting at Rick’s hooked-right-hand side, across the table from one-eyed asshole, cool as shit Carl? Forming alliances, making plans, discussing what’s fair and not fair to trade, preparing for the next attack…falling in love with some lucky sap at the table who’s just doe-eyed over her.

Maybe the guy would be tall and have dark hair and a large smile and a crude sense of humor. It would remind Lucille of someone she had once known and loved, and she’d fall in love with this new sap only to find he’s nothing at all like Negan, that he’s better than Negan.

Just like that, the fantasy soured. Negan’s mind instead conjured up images of Lucille, half-emaciated like she was in the hospital, shivering in the cold, eyes wide on the lookout for the hungry dead, for the cruel people, for the men that would take one look at her and be only interested in one thing that they have no right in taking…

Then Negan’s fantasy warped and twisted again into a strong Lucille that wouldn’t fear death but instead loved it, welcomed it. A Lucille that became cold and unfeeling and ruthless. A Lucille that became exactly like him, humbled on her knees, wanting so badly to be dead just like him.

“NO.” Negan gritted out between his teeth. “Fuck. I’m stronger than this.”

It hurt too much to think of Lucille ever feeling like how he feels now. She wouldn’t have wanted him to give up and want to die like this. Climbing to his feet, he paused and numbly stared down, his eyes resolutely glued to the ramrod straight stalk of the sunflower than the crooked wooden cross. “Same time tomorrow?”

Not one of his jokes. He was sure he heard her answer.

“Good.”

I had all and then most of you  
Some and now none of you  
Take me back to the night we met

Negan could scarcely believe that he went from a man who had everything to just…this. And he didn’t mean from being King Shit back at the Sanctuary, working his way up to Pussy-Connoisseur status. No, he meant from before. Happy wife, happy life. He and Lucille were high school sweethearts through and through.

They met freshmen year of high school when the school districts were redrawn, forcing Negan’s middle school and Lucille’s middle school to attend the same cramped high school. It wasn’t until junior year that they started dating, and their dates consisted of driving around town, just wasting gas and singing along to the radio. Lucille loved to sing her heart out to damn near everything; Queen, Billy Joel, David Bowie, The Eagles, Elton John, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash. Back then she was happy with a burger joint. Life was simple.

After high school, they went to the same college, and then came back to their high school to teach. Lucille did choir, and Negan did coaching – and the occasional history class or two. In a high school environment, they thrived together. It was timeless.

But then things changed, and it was no one’s fault.

First, Lucille was fired. She did absolutely nothing wrong, but the school’s budget had cut spending on the arts, instead redistributing it to sports. Negan thought that may have been a sore spot between them, because while Lucille was collecting her severance pay, Negan got a pay raise. She never said anything directly, but Negan knew that she resented him slightly. Even with his pay raise, though, it wasn’t enough, and Lucille had trouble finding a job. Their compromise was simple: Negan got a part time job selling used cars on the weekends and during the summer, and Lucille took this as a sign that they should start building a family together.

At first, Negan was ecstatic, but no matter how often they tried, they couldn’t. Things started to get tense, and Lucille felt like a caged bird. The white picket fence that she adored became her gilded cage, and Negan didn’t want to go back home anymore. That’s what prompted his mistress, Agnes.

She just more or less fell into his lap. He met Agnes at a baseball game – the first baseball game that Lucille refused to attend for him after one of their fights. Agnes was there for her nephew, a kid on the opposing team. Hell, Negan couldn’t remember the little shit’s name. He couldn’t remember what he and Agnes talked about. He couldn’t even remember if his team won that day. All Negan could remember is that he thought she was smoking hot with her curly hair piled on top of her head – and most importantly she looked nothing like Lucille and acted nothing like her either.

They ended up fucking that night, and she didn’t care that he was married. Negan liked that a lot.

For a long while he played the game of trying to keep Agnes a secret, but he was just a little too careless – maybe on purpose – and Lucille wasn’t an idiot. She found out and was appropriately furious. They had fight after fight, and Negan knew that if he dropped Agnes right when Lucille found out, it still wouldn’t go back to the way things were with Lucille. The trust was gone. He ruined it, just like he ruined everything.

Then Lucille got sick, and Negan really knew that things would never be the same again. Lucille’s cancer was diagnosed as terminal, but they still went through with the treatment because that was what insurance was for damn it! And Negan, Negan still held on to hope. Lucille was the strongest person he knew. She could beat something like cancer. Cancer was what old people got and died of. Not someone like Lucille who was barely thirty.

Negan hated that it took his wife getting cancer for him to finally break things off with his mistress. When he told Lucille about it while she was sprawled on her hospital bed, pushing around her strawberry jello with hunks of fruit in it on her tray. She was also furious and laughed until she dissolved into a coughing fit. “You picked the sick girl, Negan.”

It was almost funny. Agnes was just as mad, and she said nearly the same thing. “You’re going to pick the dead woman over me?” She snarled and attempted to shove him out of her bed.

“She’s not fucking dead yet!” Negan snarled back, snatching his clothes from the floor.

Agnes held up her finger at him, clutching the bedsheet over her breasts to preserve her modesty – what little she had left. “Yet,” she repeated back at him.

He was shell-shocked.

But Agnes wasn’t forgiving. Again, she was nothing like Lucille, which is why Negan liked her so much, though he didn’t love her. “When she dies, don’t try to come back to me. I won’t wait and pick up your broken pieces. If you leave now, you don’t get to come back.”

Gathering up his anger to defend himself, Negan curled his lip and spat back, “Fuck you, Agnes, you hateful bitch.”

“Go fuck yourself, Negan, and get out of my apartment.”

That was the last he spoke to Agnes, and as soon as he stormed out of her apartment, he deleted her number and blocked it. He wanted jack shit to do with her, and wholly through himself into doting on his dying wife.

But he had been right. She was dying, and so she died. And rather than letting her go peacefully, Negan clutched at pieces to preserve her memory. But now he didn’t even have that. He had to bury the pieces. It was why he was here now, wondering how he went from what was essentially the normal, unglamorous American Dream to… to eating dog.

“I’m fucking starving okay?” Negan said to no one. To the dog’s dead, glazed over eyes as he roasted it over the fire. To the overwhelming darkness and whatever lurked within. To Lucille, who wasn’t even there; not really anyway. “Damn thing would have been eaten by the dead eventually,” he defended himself.

The next day, Negan went to Lucille’s grave to tell her. Even though he spoke to himself, not physically having her there with him felt like she wouldn’t be able to know. He told her about shooting and eating the dog.

“I still feel bad about the fucking dog,” he said as though he were confessing from a priest. But Lucille would not absolve him of his sins, and killing a dog isn’t nearly so bad as half of what he’s done – even before the end of the world.

“Didn’t even taste good.”

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do  
Haunted by the ghost of you  
Oh, take me back to the night we met

A lot of Negan’s days were spent like that. He’d leave his ramshackle little abode and go out looking for food. Sometimes he’d be able to make it back before nightfall, sometimes he couldn’t. It’s not like it mattered. He was so damn far away from everywhere. The Hilltop, the Kingdom, the Sanctuary, Alexandria… he missed those places.

The Hilltop was a charming and quaint, nothing like the abandoned overgrown farms he sees all the time. They had great bread. He’d never be allowed to go back. Not with Maggie there.

The Kingdom had the best fruit though. The weirdest guys, but the best fruit. And a lot more horses than Alexandria. They had taken a hit after Ezekiel. But they’d get better, especially with Rick’s help.

Alexandria. He wondered how Rick was. Andrea was dead, that had to be hard. Negan could understand. Andrea was a wife to Rick. And Carl was at the Hilltop. Negan wondered if his cell was occupied again. Maybe if times got hard, he could go back. At least he had visitors, like Rick. Well, now it would only be Rick. Carl was gone, yes, but so was Olivia. She was dead. Shame. So many people were dead now.

The Sanctuary. Not his Sanctuary any longer. Dwight wanted to run the show. Those people would never take him back – didn’t give a fuck about what he did for them, what he personally sacrificed. No, he wouldn’t think about that.

Negan tried not to linger on memories, instead focusing on how to survive. He ended up keeping a running commentary to himself, and he explained it off as to keep his voice from getting rusty and useless. Besides, he did like listening to himself.

“Jack-motherfucking-pot!” He exclaimed one morning when he came over a tipped over, abandoned semi-truck. He pried open the trailer and found a shitload of cans. It was worth getting his jeans wet for. He’d eat well tonight.

“Fuck you, fucking expired fucking canned fucking food!” Negan shouted that night as he was huddled in the bushes, shitting his brains out. “Fuckity-fucking-fuck OH!” Much quieter, out of misery, he moaned to himself, “Oh God…”

And so it goes.

One of Negan’s scavenging trips he ended up with a shopping cart full of useful shit, though not necessarily any food. He had a shovel, that was very handy as a weapon and tool. Maybe he’d use it to plant more flowers around Lucille’s grave. He might even start a little vegetable garden. Lucille could push up the daisies and carrots for him.

Passing by a barn, Negan hummed thoughtfully. He needed food, and the barn might still have something useful like that. Maybe even seed if he was particularly lucky. “Oh, what the hell…one more place couldn’t hurt…” he said to the cool wind bracing against the back of his black leather jacket.

He pushed open the barn doors wide, letting the light in, eyes sharp for any potential threats. And there in the corner of one of the stalls, the light illuminated a wooden baseball bat that was neatly propped up in the corner. Through the dust motes, it was the only thing he could see. Not even the pitchfork with its silver tines caught the light. It was haunted. It begged to be touched.

“No.” Negan whispered to it, not daring to step a foot inside. He stayed frozen in the doorway, in limbo, in that liminal space, not daring to breathe or hope or even think of the possibilities.

“No, no, no.” Negan said, not even aware that he stepped inside the barn, his shadow elongated over the floor but not reaching the bat.

“No.” Negan said firmly, bowing his head, some of his hair flopping over his face. He said nothing when he looked up. He only glared.

When the night was full of terrors  
And your eyes were filled with tears

Negan remembered Lucille’s treatment. Those were the worst days of his life. He thought it was hell – and it still was its own hell – before the end of the world, and he hadn’t even been the one going through it. His Lucille would try to eat, and then would routinely vomit up everything after the chemo. They tried everything, and ruined every favorite food she had from it. Even now, Negan doubted he could eat Papa Johns without wanting to gag, too.

Then there were other things. Just the pain of it. The ache in her bones, the chill that wouldn’t go away. Her hair falling out and leaving her like a skeleton. Her skin sagging around her brittle bones, going grey. The tremble in her hands that had once been so steady at the piano. Her slender fingers became bone. Sometimes she’d try to play in the air, as close as she could get to a real piano. Just doing that would tire her out.

One time, Negan brought her one of those keyboards for children. Lucille banged out a few notes and they laughed, but then she cried and Negan broke it and threw it away. He still didn’t know why she cried. She wouldn’t tell him. But he thought it might have something to do with how she thought she may never get the chance to play the piano again. Or how they never had children that would play with that, or children that would ever learn how to play the piano with her. The skill would die with her.

Another part was the humiliation Lucille had to go through. Tubes for breathing, tubes for eating, catheters, bed pans, IV drips, needles everywhere. Her muscles deteriorated quickly. Negan couldn’t count how many time he would carry her to the bathroom so she could vomit there. He took care of her through it, uncharacteristically patient with everything, so much so that it surprised Lucille and even some of the nurses as well. The way he comforted himself through it is that he thought that she might one day return the favor when they grow old together. What a stupid thing to ever fantasize at the time.

Most haunting of all, though, Negan remembered his final moments with Lucille. Not just when she died, because when she died, it was in her sleep and he talked to again nothing but a physical embodiment of her, driving himself crazy by playing the same song over and over again in hopes that Lucille would either wake up and break into song or wake up to tell him to turn that shit off.

But no, Negan remembered his last conversation with her, with Lucille. She had been asking about the school.

“Did your team go to state this year?” She croaked.

A lot of his team had gotten sick this year, and with Negan gone so much, there had been no chance at even a hope for state. “No, no we didn’t.” Negan said, quiet. In the hospital, he had to be quiet and less rowdy. The only times he got loud was when he was emotional. But other than that, he contained himself if only because he didn’t want to agitate Lucille any further – or be thrown out by the nurses. He didn’t want to leave Lucille’s side.

“I’m sorry, Negan,” Lucille whispered, voice cracking. Negan didn’t know why she apologizing. She had no reason to. “There’s always next year, though, right Coach?”

That was something he always told his kids. It was something Lucille used to tell her students, too, when they didn’t make it to state for the choir competitions. That was fairly rare, though.

“Yeah, Lucille. You’re right. There’s always next year. I’ll take you with us.” Negan knew he wouldn’t be able to.

Lucille knew it, too. “I’d like that, Negan.” She weakly smiled at him, it reaching all the way up to her eyes. And then the moment was ruined when she hacked and coughed, her whole body shuddering.

Negan called for the nurses, unaware that this would be the last time he would be able to talk to his conscious wife. If he had known, maybe he would’ve said something better, something more substantial, something comforting. It’s what she deserved, but yet again, something he couldn’t provide. He hated himself for it, and as he laid in his sleeping bag, staring up at the ceiling with his hands behind his head, Negan tortured himself with the memory, playing it over and over again.

When you had not touched me yet  
Oh, take me back to the night we met

One of Negan’s favorite memories of Lucille was unsurprisingly their first time together. He and Lucille had fooled around a lot in the back of his car, and once – Lucille had been brave enough to give him road head. That was a one-time thing, though, because that’s how he ended up totally his car. His mom hadn’t been happy, but Lucille was damn proud of the memory. It still made him smile to think about, too.

But their first time was special. Lucille had been all shy and demure as she took him by the hand and led her up to her bedroom. Her parents were out of town. Negan wasn’t even supposed to be over there, but he snuck out. He had been worried about her because she hadn’t gone to school that day. She was at home, sick but not with the flu. Just girl problems.

They’d been on the couch, making out, dry-humping. Typical teenaged stuff. Negan had her topless and he was loving it. Before he had only fondled her over the bra with his hands, but now he was able to kiss and suck and devour. He’d been so surprised when Lucille forcibly pried him away from her heaving breasts by the painfully tight hold she had on his hair.

“Negan,” she moaned breathlessly and then blushed at herself for sounding so brazen. “Negan, come upstairs with me.”

He blinked at her. Lucille had had other boyfriends just like Negan had had other partners, too. But she was a still a virgin while Negan was decidedly not. He had begged her for forever to get into her panties, but she said they’d wait until the night of their senior prom. More romantic that way, and it was supposed to be a landmark in their relationship. That would mean Negan would have to stay with her for over a year. Negan didn’t care – Lucille was worth the wait. But for her to push that off now…

“Are you asking for what I fucking thing you’re asking, Lucille?” Negan asked her. He wanted to be absolutely sure. He wanted her to be absolutely sure either. When he lost his virginity, it had been embarrassing. It was in shower, and he ended up slipping out a lot. Neither of them had a lot of fun. Fuck, what was that girl’s name? Never mind that now.

“Yes!” Lucille insisted and hopped off of his lap, dragging him with her by the hand, “We can take all night.” Placing her hand on his just over his excited heart thumping out of control to rush the blood to his dick, Lucille lowered her voice, attempting – and succeeding – seduction. “Make love to me, Negan.”

All to eager, Negan followed her up the stairs, and it wasn’t until he bumped into Lucille at her bedroom door that she started to have her doubts. “Oh. I forgot that I’m…” she trailed off and looked down, immediately dropping his hand.

Negan wasn’t having that, and took her hand back up again. “I don’t care. I’ve fingered you before while you’re on it. What’s the big fucking whoop?”

“What about condoms?”

“I’ve got a couple in my wallet.” He smiled wide and wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Been saving them for you, Lucille.”

“But it’s just… you know, gross and messy.”

“We’ll put down an old towel and then throw it away. No fucking big.” But he could still see Lucille was conflicted with herself. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “If you don’t want to, if you’re not absolutely ready, we won’t. But it doesn’t mean anything to me if we do it now. Makes no difference at all. You’re still beautiful, Lucille, and fucking sexy. I love you.”

This was not the first time he told her that. It wouldn’t be the last. It still meant as much, and he wasn’t saying it just so he could fuck her.

Lucille blushed prettily for him, and stood on tip-toe to give him a proper, full kiss: all passion and tongue. After that, she didn’t ask him to stop, and it was just as she said. They made love and they took all night.

I had all and then most of you  
Some and now none of you  
Take me back to the night we met

Negan couldn’t stop thinking about the damn baseball bat. It kept him up at night. It bothered him so much that he had to talk to Lucille about it for advice like he did with all things nowadays. He went to grave first thing in the morning, and knelt for absolution.

“You’re not a fucking baseball bat,” he began vehemently, “I’m talking to you like a crazy person, but you’re my dead wife…Lucille.” He sighed. “Not the baseball bat I named after you. That was just a fucking baseball bat. I didn’t love it. Not really. I can replace the bat…that’s not replacing you. It’s not!” He was breathless by the time he finished, and he kneeled there in the dirt, panting.

He felt like he should be in AA only for baseball bats – for mementos that were supposed to be his wife. Negan kept trying to convince himself that he could quit at any time – hell, he had managed to stay away from the bat for two years, but as soon as he saw it, he had to have it again. He went ballistic when Carl shot it. When he broke it on Beta’s back, he nearly died trying to avenge it – as if it were a person. It wasn’t healthy, none of this was, but it’s all he had to keep sane. So, what if he got another bat, he needed a weapon. He needed it.

Without another rational thought, Negan ran for the barn. He hadn’t even grabbed another weapon or the shopping cart. He wasn’t thinking. He just knew he had to have it. Hopefully it was still there.

It was. When he threw open the barn doors, it was untouched, mocking him again. Calling for him. It sounded like Lucille. He sprinted inside and lifted it into the air. The bat felt right in his hand, the weight reassuring, the wood smooth if only a little dusty. “I am young again and I want to live!” He cheered, and he had never felt so alive or happy. Like his old self again.

Walking back to his home, Negan was smiling and whistling. The bat rested against his shoulder, knocking to the side as though it were cuddling him. The road was lined with a barbed wire fence. It caught the light and glittered, singing to him like a siren with Lucille’s singing voice.

“Hm?” He turned his head. “Well, would you fucking fuck fuckity look at that?”

Back in his house, he took the barbed wire he took from the fence and wrapped it around the bat, careful not to carve deep gauges into the wood. It was therapeutic for him, something his hands did by muscle memory alone. To Negan, it felt like poetry, like making art. While he worked, he talked to it – to her.

“I know it’s probably restricting and tight now, but you will get used to it, dear. I fucking promise the fuck out of that,” he cooed. “Pretty soon it’ll be like a second skin. You’d feel naked without it, but you’ll never fucking be without it because it’s a fucking part of you.” His tongue caught between his teeth as he concentrated particularly hard on not cutting his hand. “Fuck yes, it is,” he crooned like a lover.

And then Maggie came.

They talked.

It was hard.

Everything Negan had been feeling culminated into him being willing to die. He still felt guilty, he still wanted to do right by Rick. He knew he could never bring back Glenn for Maggie.

He wanted to die – begged her to do it. She didn’t, and unlike Rick, it wasn’t supposed to be out of mercy.

It broke Negan. He sobbed for hours, and when he pulled himself out of it, the half-finished baseball bat was still there by his knees. He couldn’t bring himself to finish it, so instead he built a big bonfire – far enough away from his house that he couldn’t attract undue attention or accidentally burn the sunflower on Lucille’s grave. The bat was tossed in with contempt. The bonfire was not meant to be a funeral pyre. And as Negan walked away, leaving the fire to burn out, he was smiling softly to himself. He was getting better every day. 

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do  
Haunted by the ghost of you  
Take me back to the night we met


End file.
